ZOS, Massive Spike in Ping/LAG in Recent Days - What Gives?

LadyGP

Onomog wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Fingers crossed we finally get an update with some substance this week....

I would be shocked if we got an update this week. They've already said the comms team will be on holiday; can't imagine them spending time on this given that.

One can hope. This write up has been weeks/months in the making - surely it has to be close to being done by now.

Onomog

There was, in the past, similar expectations about a similar response to a particular update - a response that never came. I can't help but see parallels here. But I'll sit here, watching, waiting to see if I'm proven wrong.

MincMincMinc

FYI for people to test. I found out that if steam is open on my pc while playing my TESO version of the game I will experience latency and fps issues. I simply just have steam nolonger open on startup.

Note Steam wasnt downloading at all or doing anything significant. Just by having it in the background is enough to freak out my game.

LadyGP

Onomog wrote: »

There was, in the past, similar expectations about a similar response to a particular update - a response that never came. I can't help but see parallels here. But I'll sit here, watching, waiting to see if I'm proven wrong.

My partner asked me why I am still here considering I cancelled my sub. My response was that I have faith that ESO will turn the ship around. My partner responded with saying I've been saying "this is the year Cyrodiil gets a massive update" for about 4 years now.

I don't know how to process this response now lol.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

FYI for people to test. I found out that if steam is open on my pc while playing my TESO version of the game I will experience latency and fps issues. I simply just have steam nolonger open on startup.

Note Steam wasnt downloading at all or doing anything significant. Just by having it in the background is enough to freak out my game.

Good info for those that use Steam. Unfortunately, I never used Steam.

manukartofanu

LadyGP wrote: »

My partner asked me why I am still here considering I cancelled my sub. My response was that I have faith that ESO will turn the ship around. My partner responded with saying I've been saying "this is the year Cyrodiil gets a massive update" for about 4 years now.

Honestly, I’m amazed not only by the fact that you’re still playing, but also by your persistence in keeping this topic alive. It would have faded into the past a long time ago if not for your efforts to maintain it. Despite the absurdity of the situation, most people aren’t inclined to keep reminding others about themselves when it comes to some game-related issues. They either cancel their subscription and leave or accept it, convincing themselves that everything is fine and it’s supposed to be that way.

As for me, after a three-month respite when everything was relatively working (like 2-3 errors in 10 hours of gameplay, but I wasn’t doing dungeons), I’ve canceled my subscription again. And once it expires, I don’t plan on coming back. I have absolutely no desire even to remind myself that I might want to play, only to log in and get kicked out within 5 minutes—and that’s been happening for three days in a row.

Onomog

LadyGP wrote: »

My partner asked me why I am still here considering I cancelled my sub. My response was that I have faith that ESO will turn the ship around. My partner responded with saying I've been saying "this is the year Cyrodiil gets a massive update" for about 4 years now.

I don't know how to process this response now lol.

I get it, and feel similarly. I think, for me and my partner, it's that when the game works, it's really great. We duo'd Graven Deep last night and for once the performance issues were minimal - I think lag popped up only once on the 2nd optional boss - and we were able to really take our time and enjoy the experience instead of fighting the game constantly.

I think that's what ZOS has to remember when they feel the instinct to turtle up when the criticism gets loud. People wouldn't be so loud, or passionate, or upset if they didn't care. We want the game to be better because in the moments in between the problems, we can see just how good the game could be.

So I guess I'm still here as an expression of hope.

LadyGP

manukartofanu wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

My partner asked me why I am still here considering I cancelled my sub. My response was that I have faith that ESO will turn the ship around. My partner responded with saying I've been saying "this is the year Cyrodiil gets a massive update" for about 4 years now.

Honestly, I’m amazed not only by the fact that you’re still playing, but also by your persistence in keeping this topic alive. It would have faded into the past a long time ago if not for your efforts to maintain it. Despite the absurdity of the situation, most people aren’t inclined to keep reminding others about themselves when it comes to some game-related issues. They either cancel their subscription and leave or accept it, convincing themselves that everything is fine and it’s supposed to be that way.

As for me, after a three-month respite when everything was relatively working (like 2-3 errors in 10 hours of gameplay, but I wasn’t doing dungeons), I’ve canceled my subscription again. And once it expires, I don’t plan on coming back. I have absolutely no desire even to remind myself that I might want to play, only to log in and get kicked out within 5 minutes—and that’s been happening for three days in a row.

Thank you, I appreciate it. For the record, I am no longer playing and cancelled mine and my partners sub of 6ish straight years a few months back. My efforts now are to follow through with this thread and push for change/fixes to these issues on behalf of those who are still playing this game and having issues (many of which think the issue is on their side and fail to realize everything they are trying to do on their end to fix it is having zero impact because it's a ZoS issue.

This is another thing that frustrates me. I wish they would put out widespread acknowledgment of the issue. 1) It would force them to keep information up to date and force action to resolve the issue (more than just 1 or 2 random engineers). and 2) It would alleviate a lot of frustration gamers are having thinking it's their hardware, ISP, etc.

My partner and I spent 3 or 4 months getting very frustrated and felt extremely defeated with all the money we spent on our side trying to resolve the issue. It wasn't until I came on the forums and realized it was a known thing that ZoS was just refusing to acknowledge (aside from deep in this thread which the typical user will never see... maybe that is their hope anyways who knows).

Onomog wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

My partner asked me why I am still here considering I cancelled my sub. My response was that I have faith that ESO will turn the ship around. My partner responded with saying I've been saying "this is the year Cyrodiil gets a massive update" for about 4 years now.

I don't know how to process this response now lol.

I get it, and feel similarly. I think, for me and my partner, it's that when the game works, it's really great. We duo'd Graven Deep last night and for once the performance issues were minimal - I think lag popped up only once on the 2nd optional boss - and we were able to really take our time and enjoy the experience instead of fighting the game constantly.

I think that's what ZOS has to remember when they feel the instinct to turtle up when the criticism gets loud. People wouldn't be so loud, or passionate, or upset if they didn't care. We want the game to be better because in the moments in between the problems, we can see just how good the game could be.

So I guess I'm still here as an expression of hope.

Absolutely agree with this. This is what frustrates me so much. The fact that ZoS has let PvP (Cyro) slip for so many years when it's hands down the best PvP MMO experience that I can ever remember playing in the last 10 years or so. When it works it's freaking insane. Some of my best memories were the MYM max pop 1+ hour trifaction fights for a keep. All the walls down, inner walls going down, pushing EP/AD back and then getting walls repped only to repeat the process and end up getting a 200k D tick once we won the fight.

Those were some insane moments. The problem is... the lag is so bad now and the disconnects/crashes happen so frequent now that you spend 3/4 of that hour trying to get back into the game so those experiences don't happen anymore.

Long winded way of saying... the potential for PvP was so much... but due to their lack of action and technical debt they built up over the years now has them in a place that it's next to impossible to unwind that debt and fix the issues.

KaironBlackbard

Onomog wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

My partner asked me why I am still here considering I cancelled my sub. My response was that I have faith that ESO will turn the ship around. My partner responded with saying I've been saying "this is the year Cyrodiil gets a massive update" for about 4 years now.

I don't know how to process this response now lol.

I get it, and feel similarly. I think, for me and my partner, it's that when the game works, it's really great. We duo'd Graven Deep last night and for once the performance issues were minimal - I think lag popped up only once on the 2nd optional boss - and we were able to really take our time and enjoy the experience instead of fighting the game constantly.

I think that's what ZOS has to remember when they feel the instinct to turtle up when the criticism gets loud. People wouldn't be so loud, or passionate, or upset if they didn't care. We want the game to be better because in the moments in between the problems, we can see just how good the game could be.

So I guess I'm still here as an expression of hope.

Truth

moderatelyfatman

@LadyGP
I too have some of my happiest memories involving epic fights around Cyrodiil. At one time my guild would lead 24 player raids (which were usually full) on Friday nights and weekends. We weren't particularly great players (and not an optimised group by any means) but we had fun whether or not we won our fights.

But I've come to accept that that game is gone now. I don't see us ever getting back the Cyrodiil of old given how low the population caps have become (unlike other MMOs, ZOS won't publish the actual numbers but with addons I've counted as high as 70 in the past whereas during the last MYM the biggest fight didn't reach 50). The actual map now feels too big since it can only support a single trifaction fight in one location now.

Jaraal

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

@LadyGP
I too have some of my happiest memories involving epic fights around Cyrodiil. At one time my guild would lead 24 player raids (which were usually full) on Friday nights and weekends. We weren't particularly great players (and not an optimised group by any means) but we had fun whether or not we won our fights.

Yes, I was anti-PvP when I first went to Cyro to get the Legate's Black dye. But the 24 man groups were a welcome place where total n00bs could learn at their own pace by listening and observing, while at the same time not being a burden to the group as a whole. But with ZOS' unwelcome decision to cut group sizes in half, combined with the proliferation of chain reaction "bomb" sets, new players are usually under HPed and under resisted, and considered bomb bait by most, and therefore not welcomed. In fact, they often get called out publicly as such (whether they know better or not), and it's definitely a more hostile environment for those new, but interested in ESO PvP.

Pelanora

Seeing this thread is now kind of a sit-in, maybe everyone sharing stories of great memories would help.

loosej

Pelanora wrote: »

Seeing this thread is now kind of a sit-in, maybe everyone sharing stories of great memories would help.

A couple of years ago, when I was still an ignorant newbie wearing a mix of half complete overland sets, I discovered Cyrodiil during MYM and really fell in love with this game.

After getting the quests and checking the map (there were keeps burning all over the place) I ported to a friendly keep that wasn't under attack but had an enemy keep next to it. Shortly after arriving there I saw someone yell the cryptic message "MG UA" in chat. People started moving so I followed the crowd, and what I saw when I reached the top of the walls was amazing. The field in front of the main gate was full of ballistae and trebuchets, players fighting each other all over the place, our walls filled with counter siege... It was glorious chaos and I loved it.

At the time I was a member of two small trading guilds, mostly still selling junk only other newbies could use. The GM of one of those guilds spent a lot of time in Cyro as well, playing for the same faction. When he started to notice my presence there he made sure to say hello every day. It took me a couple of days to start replying, I'd pretty much only ever entered "/reloadui" in the chat box, and felt a bit awkward saying anything in /s (which he used to greet me). I also wanted to make sure it was even me he was saying hello to.

This made for a very welcoming experience, and once I'd started filtering out the negative voices in zone chat I discovered a zone full of chill and friendly players. People calling out directions to the next offensive push, requesting backup when under attack, cracking some jokes in between, and giving advice to anyone who asked for it.

I almost never join groups in Cyro, mostly because I'll often afk for a couple of minutes and would always lag behind the group if I did. But between people calling out targets in chat and learning to read the map, it's not that hard to figure out where you could/should go. Over time I started to notice that a lot of people play that way, and that there was in fact a strong sense of cohesion between all those solo players. Cyrodiil allows you to be a member of a group, doing your part to achieve a common goal, without actually needing to join a group. To me it's not only the most fun gameplay eso has to offer (when it works), it's also a great social experience. Though I have to admit I almost capped my ignore list to reach that point.

KaironBlackbard

Nowadays cyrodiil seems devoid of life, save the occasional 50kHP guy who is immune to all damage and deals 25k damage in a single hit, or can cast 5 abilities in a single button press using only one animation to do so (literally impossible btw, if that's an addon it needs to be banned.)
{Hence I don't play Cyrodiil that much.}

A few days ago I went into Cyrodiil to do a bruma quest and my team owned half the keeps. Within 15 minutes we owned none, lost them one at a time.
I only saw 2 people, one ran away from me when he saw me, the other nuked me many times.
The other was a Nightblade, female elf.
After she took all my team's keeps (I'm aldmeri, they daggerfall), she went in for my scroll, and nuked the whole place in very few ability casts.
All she did visibly was cast Concealed Weapon and insta killed me, but in the report it showed 5 abilities, the second was CW, and the rest never showed animation for, like Grim Focus (2.5k) and Sap Essence (2.5k).
Also, somehow every single ability was 2.5k damage. I don't see how that's really possible with the balancing of those abilities (like Grim Focus which I normally get 8k+ (12K) on).
I am sorc with bound aegis, but didn't block that.

So I chase her halfway to the gate, drop my Atronach in front of her, landing on her head, she took nothing and no stun.
I cast my Hurricane to catch up to her.
Cast my Critical Surge (yes its morphed) and then hit her with imbue weapon and then lightning.
She turns around, I barswap and cast bound aegis and block.
She walks up to me, casts concealed weapon, and I die.
Every ability listed as 2.5k damage. AGAIN. And all I saw visibly was one ability cast.
BTW She was wearing the seducer mythic necklace.

Yes I reported her after that.
I'm also not mentioning name here.

After that I made the long trek to Bruma to do the quest.

Pelanora

Does Artemis play MMOs?

moderatelyfatman

Howdy folks, it's Story Time with Fatman!

The Good Tank Meta

For those who don't remember, early 2021 was the last time ZOS seriously considered trying to improve the performance in Cyrodiil. They announced 'No-proc' Cyrodiil for several months and most of us has an incredible time. One of our guildies foresaw the importance of 'Beekeepers' and 'Mark of the Pariah' so most of us farmed it. Those of us who could be bothered were well prepared for when it came round.

So we all played tanks..... and had fun! Even though tank was meta, the tank was not indestructible. This was before hybridisation so the ability to self-heal was limited to Resolving Vigor for most of us Stam toons unless we had a party healer. Even for magicka toons, they could not just pop a resolving vigor and then spam mag heals. We also didn't have proc-sets which could do burst damage for us or massive heals when we were low on health.

What this tankiness gave players like me was time: enough time to actually see the game unfold and enough time to react to an opponent. Each time I would die, it was to another players skills and not their gear. With the improved performance, US players with their low ping could no longer perform a full dummy parse on me while I was lagging out and desyced.

The funny thing is that we still got bombed and ganked by Nightblades. However, these were amongst the very best who could wipe us with their skills and not depend on their item sets. One of our members who played a nightblade brawler created a build that stacked into penetration to become an effective 1v1 tank killer. It felt like a good balance where you could get killed by a nightblade ambush if you weren't careful but the majority of the time you were worrying about the players you could see.

I'm not sure what happened to the ball groups but they seemed to take a break during this time. There were times we were stomped by various groups but it never felt like the one-sided affair that ball-groups are these days.

Anyway, here is one of many of my favourite memories from this time:
We were in a large group (about 18) on EP faction and managed to sneak behind enemy lines and steal a DC scroll while there was a full on faction fight going on somewhere else.
In order to avoid DC turning our baby zerg into roadkill, our genius scroll runner had the brilliant idea of running the scroll to the south. We made it as far as Chorrol when the entire faction of AD turned up and starting giving chase. The scroll runner made an abrupt turn back to the north before falling in the the lava!
What happened next was sheer comedy and lunacy mixed into one perfect moment. You see, the scroll landed on the edge of the lava when the runner died, so instead of fighting us, the majority of the AD faction went full lemming and started leaping en masse into the lava to retrieve it. Then DC turned up and started leaping into the lava to get the scroll back!
In the mean time, our mini zerg thought 'What he heck!" and did our own EP lemming charge!

Anyway, here is a screenshot I took of the event.

meekmiko

Pelanora wrote: »

Seeing this thread is now kind of a sit-in, maybe everyone sharing stories of great memories would help.

Be extremely careful with going too far off topic of the original post, because they might use it as an excuse to swoop in and close this thread down for derailment.

Onomog

meekmiko wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

Seeing this thread is now kind of a sit-in, maybe everyone sharing stories of great memories would help.

Be extremely careful with going too far off topic of the original post, because they might use it as an excuse to swoop in and close this thread down for derailment.

Yeah, maybe it might be prudent to create a separate thread, rather than give them any excuse to put this in the digital circular file.

method__01

high latency almost all day, every day after last patch, very annoying mostly inside archives
where it feels like game doesn't register the damage or buffs not appearing on time (or appear after boss dead)
marauder killed me today at Arc 3 and i didnt noticed his spawn......no way to wep swap or use the quickwheel for a scroll
latency same or worst at event areas, open map and try check the area
for the active Vent -no luck, or go to a resource to find out thats not there etc

LadyGP

meekmiko wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

Seeing this thread is now kind of a sit-in, maybe everyone sharing stories of great memories would help.

Be extremely careful with going too far off topic of the original post, because they might use it as an excuse to swoop in and close this thread down for derailment.

Agreed but I have faith that Kevin would make sure this thread stays open unless all heck breaks loose in it - given how long it's been open and all the feedback thats been provided.

A few fun stories mixed in with frustration posts are good for your mental health - I say!

Pelanora

Stories of how it used to be great supports the case it's fallen far from what it was, and describes to the dev.s WHY and WHAT they need to be looking at when they're thinking about change.

It's as important a source of information as anything we can give them.

thedocbwarren

I'm just tired of the crashes, bluescreens, drop-offs, and failed launcher launches. Lag is terrible and most times I can't even play any more. GeForce Now is now suffering some of this. They are back after two day patching and now launcher complains about patches. I have a support ticket as I can't play most times and only for a few minutes till crash to desktop or worse.

This is upsetting and I don't know how this can keep happening.

Quackery

My gameplay on PC for a week now: 999+ ping the entire time

I can't even get tickets or do the endeavours because I'm perpetually stuck on 999+ ping. I've tried EVERYTHING on my end to solve it, but the issue is NOT on my side - it's on ZOS's side! The game runs great on my Xbox Series X, but it won't work on PC-servers (EU and NA). This is so damn frustrating, because there is NOTHING I can do to solve this! WHICH means that I can't play the game, WHICH means that I won't spend any money on PC. Maybe that'll make ZOS realise that they need to do something about the damn servers once and for all. There are MANY of us having issues!

I've tried the game on 2 PC's, still same issue.

moderatelyfatman

Quackery wrote: »

My gameplay on PC for a week now: 999+ ping the entire time

I can't even get tickets or do the endeavours because I'm perpetually stuck on 999+ ping. I've tried EVERYTHING on my end to solve it, but the issue is NOT on my side - it's on ZOS's side! The game runs great on my Xbox Series X, but it won't work on PC-servers (EU and NA). This is so damn frustrating, because there is NOTHING I can do to solve this! WHICH means that I can't play the game, WHICH means that I won't spend any money on PC. Maybe that'll make ZOS realise that they need to do something about the damn servers once and for all. There are MANY of us having issues!

I've tried the game on 2 PC's, still same issue.

Welcome to the club... it's not fun but at least you have a community here.

silky_soft

meekmiko wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

Seeing this thread is now kind of a sit-in, maybe everyone sharing stories of great memories would help.

Be extremely careful with going too far off topic of the original post, because they might use it as an excuse to swoop in and close this thread down for derailment.

Lag was bad today in first few bg. Was fine in pve land.